Potatoes linked to lower blood pressure

6th September 2011

Potatoes have long been given a bad press for their role in weight gain and heart disease in the guise of chips and crisps, but researchers in the United States say properly cooked purple potatoes can lower blood pressure.

According to a research team in Pennsylvania, a couple of servings of potatoes daily can have as beneficial an effect on blood pressure as oatmeal.

Eaten with such frequency, in those quantities, the potatoes will not make you put on weight, they found.

The newly available purple pigmented potatoes were shown to have the effect, and the University of Scranton scientists said it was important to eat the skins.

A micro-study of 18 patients who ate 6-8 small purple potatoes daily for a month recorded falls of 3.5% and 4.3% in their systolic and diastolic blood pressures, respectively.

The patients studied by researcher and chemistry professor Joe Vinson were mostly obese or overwieght, with many already on medication for hypertension.

The research, funded by the US Department of Agriculture, was due to be presented at a national meeting of the American Chemical Society in Denver, Colorado, this week.

But some experts have warned that the results are only preliminary, and have so far not been subjected to peer review.

According to Vinson, the purple potatoes, skins and all, can be a healthy food if they're not cut into chips or crisps and deep-fried.

Minus the cheese and sour-cream topping, purple potatoes in particular have high levels of antioxidants, he said, adding that red-skinned or white potatoes could also have similar effects.